July 07, 2017

221: Be a Student. Always

In this episode, Steli and Hiten spark up a discussion about learning based on Hiten’s tweet “Be a student. Always”. This particular tweet received a lot of attention and with good reason—we need to discuss how comfortable we are with learning on an everyday basis. Listen in as Steli and Hiten share the ways in which they learn best, the motives behind learning something new, and tips to maximize your learning today.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:05 – Today’s episode is about Hiten’s tweet “Be a student. Always.”

00:54 – The tweet had 102 retweets and 210 likes

01:30 – Hiten works 14-16 hours a day—there are a lot of resources that he needs which are unavailable or hard to find; but, he is enjoying the learning process

02:02 – Hiten started to play with Sketch, a designer tool he realized he could use

03:20 – Hiten is not a designer but he cares greatly about design

03:45 – Hiten says to learn by doing

04:41 – Hiten does not like learning for the sake of learning, he likes to learn new things because he needs the knowledge and understanding

05:33 – Hiten’s aspiration is to always be a student

06:22 – Hiten is happiest when is he learning every single day

07:06 – Steli says he learns more when he is immersed in the action rather than reading or researching about it

08:09 – Steli’s knowledge about something grows deeper when he is actually DOING it

08:53 – Steli knows how to play the guitar

09:15 – Steli was 12 years old when he decided he wanted to learn the guitar, but he wanted to do it on his own

09:43 – Steli would play his brother’s guitar when his brother was not at home

10:14 – Steli eventually asked his brother for the basics and then learned everything else on his own; he would play for 9 – 10 hours a day

10:52 – Steli learned by listening to songs and figuring out how to play them (playing by ear)

11:34 – Steli became very good at playing complicated pieces and developed a good ear to the point where he could just listen to a piece and know how to play it

12:02 – Steli felt his understanding is deeper because he spent his time working on it rather than taking an easier route

13:13 – Hiten says people learn different ways

13:44 – Hiten thinks learning by doing is the easiest route to learn

14:19 – Learning by doing means you are bound to make mistakes as opposed to the “safer” route of reading books

15:27 – Hiten’s tip: If you want to learn something, just go do it

16:36 – Steli’s tip: Compare yourself now from who you were a year ago and see how you have changed

17:24 – Look at the things that you were afraid of this past year and if you have outgrown it, it means you have learned from it

18:16 – End of today’s episode

3 Key Points:

Aim to be a life-long learner—try to incorporate learning into your everyday

Learning by DOING is the easiest way to figure things out and take that learning to a deeper level.

Look at the tasks you were afraid of at the beginning of the year and see just how far you’ve come, today.

Steli Efti: Hey, everybody, this is Steli Efti

Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. On today's episode, as a startup chat, we're going to talk about a statement I tweeted. I don't even remember how popular it became, and what I said was, "Be a student. Always." Now I'm searching Twitter for it. Yeah, I just messaged it to Stelley and said, "Hey, we should talk about this." The reason I said that is because I think we should talk about it and what it really means and because I'm sure we've both got something to say. By the way, I tweeted it a while ago now ... Actually, no, eight, nine days ago, and obviously longer from when all of you are listening to this, but whatever, and it's, "Be a student. Always.

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By Steli Efti & Hiten Shah: Serial Entrepreneurs, Sales & Marketing Experts, Startup Investors & Advisors, CEOs running multi million dollar SaaS Startups

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